It ceases to amaze me how quickly everything you took as fact can change in a heartbeat. Not long ago Microsoft and Salesforce.com were sworn enemies. WOW, how quickly that changed. In the last few months, Salesforce.com and Microsoft have been marching in a sort of lock-step. Which is, to be honest, a really good things for business users?

So what is the latest amazing thing to develop out of this new found love affair? Can you say Business Intelligence or rather Microsoft's Power BI Tool. Microsoft made many announcements during its Convergence conference in Atlanta this morning. They included news that the preview of Power BI will be released for FREE.

So what is this Power BI Tool?

Power BI is a browser-based data visualization portal capable of connecting with corporate data using secured accounts, either on-premise or through select cloud-based vendors. It works with Microsoft's own Dynamics CRM as well as third-party vendors such as Workday, Google Analytics, Salesforce.

Wait what was that? Yes, you read that correctly. This new cloud-based OLAP Tool will automatically connect to your Salesforce.com data as quickly as you can enter your Salesforce credentials.

So don't delay get you own little OLAP Cube in the sky and start analysing you Salesforce.com Data today.

Andrew Bartels is a partner at PS Advisory, a firm dedicated to helping Insurance organizations and other professional services firms deploy and customize Salesforce.com, implement best practices and generate an ROI. Andrew has been CTO for a Top 100 Independent Insurance Agency and is recognized by Salesforce.com as one of the leading innovators of implementing Salesforce.com in the insurance vertical. Learn more at www.psadvisory.com

Stitch the app from the former Salesforce.com executives that positioned itself as an electronic personal assistant for sales professionals is no more. Well I knew that on Friday when the email I had been dreading arrived in my mailbox.

I am going to miss the little chap.

The reason being Stitch was one of a handful of what I call 'facilitator' apps that had become part of my daily workflow. I found myself opening that little app before I went to bed at night and the first thing in the morning. It was just that good. It started out as a full attempt at an email client and then a while back they got rid of the email client part and just started doing what they did better than anyone else. Stitch helped me do the things I knew I should be doing but just never got time to do. The app made me look good. It reminded me to confirm appointments. It reminded me to follow up. It was the closest thing I had discovered to a true machine powered personal assistant and believe me I look and experiment with a lot of technologies that claims to do that.

The truth is that Stitch did what I wish so many CRM's would do better. It analyzed your data to suggest intelligent next actions. On top of that it was truly mobile. The UI was perfectly suited for the smartphone powered world we all live in today. It empowered its user to take advantage of what Forester calls mobile moments. It was incredible how efficient Stitch made its users because it's easy to use UI and its intelligence empowered you to be productive from anywhere. That anywhere could be in an elevator or your kitchen table or the TSA line at the airport. Stitch is the reason Salesforce.com bought RelateIQ because the vendors know that they need to very quickly transition from being static storage databases to facilitators of engagement. The days of data being backward looking are behind us. In this big data driven world we want our systems to tell us what we don't know not. To thrive going forward, systems must be intelligent and forward looking and not historical archives or systems of record. The systems need to engage with their user base to facilitate success.

So my little friend Stitch is gone but let's hope that it was out there long enough for the right people to have taken notice.

Andrew Bartels is a partner at PS Advisory, a firm dedicated to helping Insurance organizations and other professional services firms deploy and customize Salesforce.com, implement best practices and generate an ROI. Andrew has been CTO for a Top 100 Independent Insurance Agency and is recognized by Salesforce.com as one of the leading innovators of implementing Salesforce.com in the insurance vertical. Learn more at www.psadvisory.com

﻿One of the things I love about the Salesforce Platform is that it never ceases to amaze me. Just when you think there is nothing new to discover this incredible platform humbles you yet again.

Take for instance a little setting in the Salesforce1 Settings called "Allow Salesforce1 to import Contacts from mobile device Contact lists".

When checked this setting allows you to add a contact from your smartphone address book directly to Salesforce. BOOM. Think about how useful that functionality is for your users and clients. After all we live on our phones. Our phones are our technology window on the world. Previous to this we would have had to have opened Outlook or used some third party tool to access this functionality. Now it is native. In addition I have a lot clients that don't want to turn on Contact Sync because the reality is that users address books are notoriously full of junk contacts. This native Salesforce functionality allows users to quickly and easily add new contacts to Salesforce one at a time without leaving the Salesforce1 app.

So how does it all work? There are two pieces to the puzzle.

Starting with version 7.0 of the Salesforce1 downloadable apps, users can import contacts from their mobile device contact lists directly into Salesforce.

> Users can go into Salesforce1 and navigate to the Contact Tab.> Select the New button> Select the "Import from Device" button> Your Contact list from the device opens and select a Contact> Matching fields from the device's contact list are mapped to matching Salesforce fields.> Finish creating the Contact like any other normal Contact

Fields that are mapped from your phone to the Salesforce record are:First and Last nameCompany PhoneMobile Phone Home PhoneEmail AddressBilling Address

Here is a link to the Salesforce KB.﻿https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewSolution?id=000211836&language=en_US

Have fun.About the Author

Andrew Bartels is a partner at PS Advisory, a firm dedicated to helping Insurance organizations and other professional services firms deploy and customize Salesforce.com, implement best practices and generate an ROI. Andrew has been CTO for a Top 100 Independent Insurance Agency, and is recognized by Salesforce.com as one of the leading innovators of implementing Salesforce.com in the insurance vertical. Learn more at www.psadvisory.com